A place to discuss the ecology and evolution of plants as well as the functioning of ecosystems.
Companion to Resource Strategies of Wild Plants, Princeton University Press.

Monday, August 18, 2014

Quick hit on male bison weights

Display of bison weights from Konza over time. The upper bound of the data envelope shows the weight dynamics of the largest males.

We didn't EID tag any of the large males at Konza, but the raw data lets us infer a bit about what is going on with their weights.

When the big males get on the scale they rarely have any other individuals with them and they move slow across, so we can get a pretty accurate weight.

If you look at all the data, you can see a clear pattern with the upper bound of the dataset. These are the big males.

Since early April, it looks like the big males gained about 200 kg.

In early July, the upper bound was 920 kg. That's over 2000 lbs.

For reference, during the fall roundup we once had an animal hit 930 kg. After that, top weights were no more than 850 kg (1870 lbs).

Since early July, it looks the biggest males have lost about 100 kg**.

That's a tremendous amount of weight to lose in just a month.

**Note that it could be that the biggest males decided to not walk over the scale during the past month. But, right now all the males and females are together, so if the females have been walking over it, so have the males.

That degree of weight loss is plausible. July and August are the rut, and that's when the bulls are going to be eating the least and "exercising" the most.

Where this becomes interesting is starting to understand the continental scale patterns and thinking about how climate change will affect grazers.

We know that cool, northern grasslands produce bigger bison than warmer, southern grasslands. At least in the fall.

One hypothesis is that the fall weights might be higher for bison in the north, but mid-summer weights are the same. In southern grasslands, forage quality drops enough such that the southern animals lose weight while the northern animals maintain it.

Alternatively, the northern animals might be even bigger midsummer.

In a few weeks, I'll head up to South Dakota to install a walk over scale there.